We cannot hold still. As human beings ought to do some work. Take some action. Those actions maybe be good or bad. Some intentional, some unintended. When unintended actions hurt others, bring misery to thoughts, people or work, it becomes important for us to accept them and work out a rectification plan. What seems to be very difficult is the fact that whenever I make a mistake i need to realize my mistake. I realize that something wrong has happened and that realization is the first step towards acceptance.
Accepting a mistake essentially means that I was wrong. How can I accept that I was wrong ? My Large Sized Ego comes in between my thoughts, awareness and acceptance. It tells me, " How can I be wrong? Why should I accept that this was my mistake ? It was someone else's mistake. I didn't do anything wrong. Even if something wrong has happened, it has nothing to do with me." On and On. The most difficult thing in life is acceptance, but it helps solve problems that are destined to arise if not done so.
Once in College we were working on an assignment and it being a very boring assignment, my partner Tanu and I ran away to a party. The net result was that it affected the project adversely and we could not finish in time. A Mistake. Yes. Grave. We were reprimanded by the professor Narayan sir, which made us realize the gravity of the situation. The only saving grace was that we accepted our mistake and apologized. We felt sorry for our actions. The professor graciously pardoned us and left us with a warning of not repeating the same mistake again. He forgave our little act and things quickly came back to normal. Had we not accepted our mistake, a small act would have become an ego battle between the insignificant us and the professor community at large which would have led to serious consequences.
Corporate life is no different. When we act on situations, some actions will be right and some wrong. Making mistakes is not wrong. But what is wrong is not realizing, not accepting them. Once a team member Rashi, was assigned a launch project to work on. She prepared proposals, identified distributors, took activation permissions and did a lot of activities to complete a pilot of the launch. What she missed was to prepare a concept note and take approval. Due to the miss she did not get approval of the schemes and landed up all mixed up in her launch. The project did not proceed as expected and her review with her seniors yielded unacceptable results.
Although Rashi had put in lot of effort her bosses felt that she did not put in enough efforts. They did not even know what work was done and why the project did not proceed as per plan. Also when discussing with her, she kept on saying that she has worked very hard and it's not her mistake that the project did not succeed. Her seniors felt that she was not ready to accept her mistake and demoted her for delivering sub standard performance. The only reason being, she did not accept where she faltered. She was not ready to take the responsibility of the mistake and blamed it on system and not getting approvals.
The major challenge was the ego issue between the boss and her. The boss took offence on the point that he tried to help her with whatever suggestions and solutions possible, but Rashi did not take enough initiative to take things to conclusion. As if this was not enough, she blamed the entire failure to not getting approvals from the boss. On the other hand, Rashi was not ready to accept her mistake. She kept repeating that she had worked very hard and did her best.
This brought the situation to a deadlock. Things went from bad to worse. The two people who were working on the project were not ready to cooperate and collaborate. Rashi found out another job for herself and moved out of the organization. Since the project did not move ahead as desired, the boss was given another responsibility and he moved on. In the end, it was the organization which Lost. A Small mistake, a little disagreement, which could have been corrected by acceptance, took things to extreme and to a point of no return.
A little slip, which could have been corrected by careful thought and acceptance, made matters worse. Someone else came in and completed the project. After all, work will be done. Either you do it, or someone else will.
An alteration in the situation was, that a mentor stepped in, she explained the situation to both the parties and brought them to a point of amicable working conditions. Both the team members took responsibility of their own work and concluded the project well. After all, ALL IS WELL, THAT ENDS WELL.
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